Strangers Like Me
by The USS Ficcelsior
Summary: A scaly coming of age tale.
1. Chapter 1

" _In this nest of whores and vipers."_

\- Javert, _Les Miserables_

* * *

Nothing said "total loss" to the three women of the Wu dynasty quite like being knocked senseless and tossed under a swarm of thousands of hungry snakes.

Sun Shangxiang, Da Qiao, and Xiao Qiao stirred occasionally in their sleep, only curling and murmuring weakly as they remained safely tucked under a thick blanket of spells and serums. One was sprawled out at the bottom of her captor's majestic skirt. Another was lying under another pile of snakes beside her. The third was strung upside-down from the temple rafters like freshly slaughtered cattle.

The scene was more reptile than woman. The faces of the captives were only visible for a few seconds at a time as the bundles of snakes constantly tangled and untangled. There was a hand poking out of the pile here, a shoulder there, and a bare foot over there. Mambas and boas slithered contemptuously through cream-colored hills and valleys. Rattlesnakes shook their tails to the soothing rhythm of nursery lullabies. Scales glided across soft, tantalized flesh like river water washing over smooth round stones.

A single wrong move or a nervous jerk from any of the three captives could send fangs stabbing into her veins, snuffing out her life in an agonizing second. This was the ending to their humanity, and the prologue to their new lives as something else.

Diao Chan was the mistress of this mysterious ceremony. She was in her natural form, one that she always kept hidden away behind a thin mask of serene and beguiling beauty. A form only a few souls in the entire world lived to tell about.

Diao Chan was still a being of remarkable beauty once she became her true self, but her gaze was anything but human. Her lithe dancer's arms were wound so tightly with hissing constrictors and pythons that it was impossible to tell where her own body ended and her slithering familiars began. Instead of a complete pair of slender human legs showing through the slit in her dress, wave after wave of snakes spilled out from underneath her skirt, creating an endless knot of winding scales where her ankles should have appeared and spreading out over her unconscious prey. Bleach white bones picked clean of their flesh were strewn about on the floor around her, telling the story of countless others who had entered this terrible place.

Da Qiao, Xiao Qiao, and Sun Shangxiang's frail and vulnerable forms were like three tiny pink pearls trying to shimmer in the murky depths of the ocean abyss, only to be smothered by the darkness. Near each of their sleeping bodies were tatters of colorful silk dresses and chunks of armor that may have been the remains of their DW8 outfits. Three half-sewn garments that were beginning to look suspiciously like their DW9 designs were draped from a stone mantle behind Diao Chan, along with a set of chakrams and combat fans sporting a new serpent motif. Snakes squirmed out of the ancient stone walls and coiled through the fresh linen with the same possessive allure as the snakes piling over the unconscious captives.

Diao Chan paced attentively between the three hissing, slithering piles. She would check each defenseless maiden for her pulse, untangle any snakes that might get too close to accidentally strangling her, and make sure she slept in relative comfort (given the predicament all three of them were in).

The doors of the decrepit temple creaked open. Lu Bu stepped out of the few rays of sunlight allowed to slither into the chamber and slammed the iron bolt behind him. He approached Diao Chan, shared a brief tender moment with his half-human spouse, and glanced over her three "recruits." A brave man with a demonic reputation of his own, Lu Bu never showed any fear, hesitation, or remorse toward being the husband of an ageless two-bodied serpent sorceress.

"What delicate flakes of flesh have you got wrapped up in your scales this time, Diao Chan?" Lu Bu asked her as if he had walked in on her washing the dishes.

"Just these three little mice I dragged out of a Wu camp during the last campaign," Diao Chan replied. "The soldiers thought they would make a marvelous gift after the victory. As you see, they were rather diligent in plucking the fur off of these lovely creatures."

A forked tongue flicked over her glossy violet lips.

"That's the only thing they plucked, I hope," Lu Bu muttered.

"Of course," Diao Chan said with a devilish glimmer in her reptilian eyes. "They would never bring me spoiled meat unless I ordered it. They know what happens when the queen cobra is displeased." A pair of tiny and highly venomous fangs emerged over her lips.

Lu Bu glanced toward the offerings again, then back toward his wife.

"What's so special about a few Wu wenches?"

"Think of the great things we could accomplish with them," Diao Chan said with a rising appetite. "The vessels I'm preparing for my slither-spawn happen to be the three greatest beauties in all of China."

Diao Chan glimpsed over her prey again before rephrasing her claim.

"Well, the two greatest beauties, and a tomboy princess who's not too shabby herself."

Lu Bu shrugged in disinterest. These meek and fae-ish things, while certainly gentle on the eyes, paled in comparison to such a bold and fulfilling woman as his wife.

"They all look like snake food to me," he put bluntly.

"Oh, Lu Bu. You just lack a lady's touch."

Diao Chan flicked her long pronged tongue again.

"Look closer at my darlings," she beckoned with tiny garter snakes wrapping around her black nails. "They're but helpless lambs now, but the curse binds them tight and they've already begun to change. In time, these girls can be nurtured into loyal pythons. They'll live as charlatans pretending to still be human for the next few years, carefully planting the seeds of distrust between our enemies from the inside. Perhaps I'll pull the strings of fate and line up a few marriages for them from behind the scenes."

She crossed her narrow, cobra-shrouded arms and grinned ominously.

"When the moment is right, they'll shed their silly guises and reveal themselves for the deadly snakes they really are. I just have to get inside of _them_ first."

Lu Bu watched as Xiao Qiao apparently stirred in her sleep. Her eyelids only twitched lightly, but she looked almost like she was stubbornly puffing the sides of her mouth to express her disgust. Then the lumps in her cheek moved, and an unraveling baby anaconda poked its small blinking head out of her mouth.

Lu Bu glimpsed toward Da Qiao and Sun Shangxiang in similar states of moral decay and strategic indecency. He cautiously shifted his eyes further down the three women's bodies, quirking his brow along the way.

"You… don't seem to having any trouble accomplishing that on your own." He ended his statement by poignantly clearing his throat.

Diao Chan turned her head and coyly nestled her shoulder to her chin, blowing a tiny kiss toward Lu Bu through curled lips. She sighed and turned back toward her three imperiled prey.

"Don't you have a few prisoners to execute?" she said with a hint of deviousness. "An insubordinate soldier or two to flog? Leave an old lady to her spinning."

Lu Bu left the chamber slowly shaking his head, muttering something about "damned snake charmers" under his breath.


	2. The Field Trial

" _*turns into a giant snake*"_

\- James Earl Jones, _Conan the Barbarian_

* * *

A great storm had taken the burgeoning Jin empire by surprise. Right now they were the burning Jin empire.

Sima Yi lifted his face from the dirt. His agonized body groveled in fire and blood as his vision returned. The new banners were ablaze. All the freshly conscripted soldiers and officers were being wiped out like vermin. Insidiousness was happening all around him.

Wang Yuanji had fallen the same way as him, lying on her stomach with Da Qiao straddling her back. Wang glanced behind at her opponent starry-eyed and delirious, taken hard by the aphrodisiac venom scorching through her veins, an indecent state for any officer. Da Qiao prepared to put her out of her misery by delicately unfastening Wang's collar and looping the snake skin tassels of her fan around Wang's eagerly willing neck.

Da Qiao politely closed her eyes and Wang's windpipe. She hardly grit her teeth when the blue and silver mere tried to buck out of her reigns. Da Qiao simply held her grip strict and diligent until the flailing stopped and the body went cold. The whole time she was completing the deed, Da Qiao imagined it was Zhen Ji who had fallen under her grasp.

A few yards away, Xin Xianying was rolling on her back and groggily staring up at the night sky. Her halberd was laying in shattered pieces near her head. The younger Qiao was sitting on top of Xin's waist licking her lips and giggling. The soft blues of Xin Xianying's battle dress tangled and drowned under the boisterous orange and greens of Xiao Qiao's.

Xiao Qiao opened her mouth. Xin Xianying's eyes went wide in a silent plea for mercy. Xiao Qiao savagely lunged down, shifting her narrow legs the way a snake adjusts its coils as her prey wiggled about under her. Fangs rent through flesh, never sharing even a single drop of venom to dull the suffering. The air was filled with agonized groans and greedy chewing sounds. In the end, Xin Xianying turned out to be a woman of exquisite flavor.

In center stage, Sun Shangxiang was elegantly uncurling her wrath. She twirled her chakram in long arcs, decapitating or eviscerating the soldiers like they were stalks of wheat surrendering to the scythe. Once the fighting died down and the remaining Jin legion had been laid to waste, Sun rested her chakram over she shoulder and locked her icy gaze on Sima Yi. She waded toward him through the sea of misery and death, a tiny slither tainting her steps.

"What _**are**_ you women?" Sima Yi gasped at Sun's feet. Pain and nausea were swirling through his gut. "This is an abomination!"

"I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you," Sun answered cheerfully, hiding something dark and unspeakable about the months she had gone missing. Her lips curled into a smirk as she flicked her tongue. Her reptilian eyes glowed in the hot firelight as she gazed down.

"Come to think of it, I'm gonna kill you anyway."

Sun hoisted the massive ring blade from her shoulder and swept at the grass, instantly relieving Sima Yi of his mortal duties with a fancy wave of her arm.

* * *

Lu Bu and Diao Chan stood on a rolling hill near the Jin camp. Together they oversaw the bloody play like hidden visitors watching an old episode of the Twilight Zone. Lu Bu with his arms crossed, Diao Chan with her hands on her swaying hips.

"See, Lu Bu?" the slippery songstress chimed. "Even the prettiest flowers in all of China can weather the storm once you put some scales on their skin."

Lu Bu sighed as he pondered deeply to himself, his eyes staying fixed on the scene of chaos.

"But have they grown strong enough for Cao Cao?"

"Does a snake sate its appetite only on prairie rats?" Diao Chan turned toward him with a suggestive grin.

* * *

 _Author's note: I saw the new DW9 designs for Xin Xianying and Wang Yuanji yesterday and I decided the only option was to immediately destroy them. It's not that there's anything wrong with them, or I don't feel bad for them and I wouldn't love to see them snake-girl-ified in a different timeline. It's just the SSX crew has to keep the rivalry real. I thought about getting Guan Yinping involved too, but she's from the wrong kingdom and I couldn't think of an excuse that made sense to have her around. Maybe SSX and the Qiaos rode up to the Jin camp carrying a pole of human corpses and Yinping was already impaled on top or something. I dunno.  
_


End file.
